The guy who could lie is now a real doll

By Georgina CooperApril 19 2003

People who joined the cult-like following of Iraq's wartime spokesman Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf can now buy a talking doll and hear him say things like "our initial assessment is that they will all die" as often as they want.

A Connecticut company, Herobuilders.com, built the doll and also sells others that make fun of the United States President, George Bush, and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

The company made the Iraqi Dis-information Minister Action Figure Doll of Mr al-Sahaf, the former information minister, who disappeared from Baghdad after the invasion of US troops, whose presence he had bizarrely denied.

TV viewers around the world took a liking to his often colourful statements, which became the butt of television talk show jokes. A web site, www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com, drew 4000 hits a second after its launch a week ago.

The doll says: "There are no American infidels in Baghdad, never. Our initial assessment is that they will all die. I am not scared and neither should you be. They're not even within 100 miles of Baghdad."

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Emil Vicale, the owner of Herobuilders.com, said he wanted to take advantage of the craze and built the doll of Mr al-Sahaf dressed in trademark army fatigues and black beret to be sold for $US35.95 ($59).

"We were able to obtain a digital copy of his voice, his sound bites," Mr Vicale said. "We were able to digitise that and impregnate that on a voice chip."

Other dolls sold by the company include Saddam Insane, President GW, Butcher of Baghdad, British Ally, and Osama is Drag - the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a pink dress.